Bittersweet
by carlizzlerose
Summary: Marc's problems stem from many places, but the grandest, darkest contribution is the one he'd rather not speak of. I own neither HP or Bittersweet by Panic! at the Disco.


__**A/N: This is a drabble I wrote for my Harry Potter RP OC. His FC is Brendon Urie so I use a lot of Panic! at the Disco songs, but own neither HP or Panic! All rights to JKR and Fueled by Ramen. On that note, enjoy!**

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><p><em>"Everything I do is bittersweet, <em>

_You could tell me secrets that I'll probably repeat,_

_I'm not trying to hurt you I just love to speak,_

_It feels like we're pulling teeth,_

_So bittersw-" _

Marc's hand fell from the guitar he'd been strumming with enthusiasm as the door flew back and slammed against the wall. He stood in the center of the large bedroom, a mangled look of surprise and fear etched upon his face as he turned to the doorway where his father stood fuming. A string of expletives ran through his mind as he stood frozen in his father's glare, knowing the trouble he must be in. Sound carried well through the thin walls of the four story manor, and there was nothing the older Cascades hated more than sound. Specifically, music.

No, that was a lie. The thing they hated most of all was Marcus playing music. Not to mention music he'd written. Not to mention loudly. His father would complain of the inability to concentrate on doing things like read books or write owls and his mother would screech on about how the dastardly sound gave her terrible headaches. That was one of the main reason Marc loved having the pub to go to. It was the perfect refuge, and not only could he play, he would play for a crowd that paid to come and hear him. But today his father had stopped him before he left, and he hadn't been able to sneak out.

It was stupid, really. He should have known better than to burst out singing in the middle of the day. Maybe part of figured if they saw how happy it made him, they'd change their minds and encourage him to pursue his dreams. Maybe he could convince them that he really was doing a good thing here, even if they couldn't see. If he could convince them to sit down and listen to him, maybe he though he could fix them. But deep down, he knew such thinking could only ever be in vain. When had his parents ever been an advocate of anything that made him happy?

"Marcus. Cascade." His father began dangerously. A surge of deep stemmed guilt and anger flooded through him, as if he'd just been caught in the act of robbing his parents from something very important. In the two obviously familiar words lay so much disappointment, so many destroyed expectations and so much lost respect. Marc wanted to feel angry, to fight back as he did when steaming within his own mind, but in the actual presence of the guilty party he fell silent, feeling nothing but the weight of all the faults they found in him reflected into his consciousness. He knew the accusations and disappointments they made weren't true, that he was better than they attempted to convince him he was. But in the dim light of his father's shadow, it was hard to see himself as anyone other that who they thought he was.

He swallowed hard, trying to down the fear before it could make it's way into his voice. "F-father?" Too late. The word flooded out as a question, the uncertainly ringing in every letter. His father didn't respond with any conscious response, but he seemed to rise in intimidation, knowing the effect he had. The tall man towered over him and Marc shrunk back slightly, his head dipping down in shame. He heard the footsteps drawing near to him, but he didn't dare look up. Fingers entered his vision, a hand being held out to him. He looked up, confused by the action. Hundreds of bizarre thoughts ran through his mind. In his inner eye, he saw a happy image of the two of them smiling and shaking hands, acquaintances if nothing more. He raised his eyebrows with curiosity, but his father remained cold and abrasive, murdering any chance for that vision to come true.

"Marcus, what do you think you're doing?"

The chilled disappointment in the words felt Marcus feeling hollow. He looked up, but avoided his father's glare, his eyes shifting around the room. What was he supposed to say? They both knew what he was doing. He was playing. He heard music, they weren't listening. The two of them had had this conversation before, and never had they reached a resolution. He wondered absently why his father kept trying to get him to change, why he was so convinced that Marcus could be 'fixed'. If he had inherited anything from them, it was his sense of pride, his lacking of the ability to change. And still they pushed and pressed on, setting all their expectations up where he would shoot them down. And as time went on, the more disappointed they were when he'd let them down again.

"I was playing." He spoke simply, not sure what the answer he was fishing for could be. Whatever it was, it wasn't that Marcus was about to say. He could tell from the look on his father's face that he'd said the wrong thing, the last lights of hope dimming behind his eyes. Marcus tensed, frightened by the reaction. His father's lips turned down into a grim glare, and Marc's braced himself for the coming storm.

"You didn't understand my question correctly. What I meant was, what do you think you're doing under this roof?"

Marcus went cold. It wasn't the first time he'd been kicked out, but that didn't mean each time it happened it was any easier. He bit his lip, willing the lump to leave his throat, waiting for his father to continue on and ell him he could come back the next day after he'd had time to think about the decisions he was making in his life. Tell him he was a disappointment. Tell him they didn't understood why he did the things he did. But instead, the two plunged headfirst into the silence he'd worked his whole life to avoid, the cold, dry ache that latched onto his core and pulled away there, making it's home in the pain and anger he felt towards himself and the rest of the world too until he became as dark as those who cast the quiet upon him. He clenched his fists in defiance. No, he'd come to far. He wouldn't let them take him down now, not without a hell of a fight.

"I, I don't know, I-" He spoke quietly, only just breaking the silence that enveloped them easily once more when the words had left his mouth. They stood there for a moment, Marcus standing tensed and afraid, Julius menacing and abrasive.

"You don't know." Mr. Cascade repeated the words slowly, shaking his head. "Neither do we, Marcus. We don't know what to do with you anymore. Your mother and I have tried to understand you your entire life, but we won't waste any more time on a lost cause. You're hopeless, Marcus. And we want you out of our home." There was not trace or regret in his father's eyes, not a hint of compassion. As his heart sank, Marc tried to think back to the old days, back when he was toddler and his parents looked at him as someone with potential, someone they could love. But the words kept ringing in his head, clouding his thought. _We won't waste any more the on a lost cause._ Was he a lost cause? Rafaela seemed to think so, as did his friends. His parents now too. Was he fooling himself when he dreamed of achieving something good, something great? Would the rest of the world soon realize he wasn't with their trouble?

He stumbled back, his head spinning._ I had to know this was coming_. He thought with the little clarity he could achieve in his swimming mind. And he had expected it, from the moment his father crossed the threshold. But he was only just legal, not even out of school yet. As much as he hated his parents, there was always a part of him that thought they could still love him, they wouldn't abandon him. But now there was nothing to hand onto, no constant to keep him grounded. He floated through his defiant mind, dead set on rejecting the full comprehension of what the words meant.

His father left the room without so much as a nod, leaving Marcus alone in his room. In a room. It wasn't his, nothing was. His heart pounded in his ears as he grew dizzy, stumbling back to lean against the bedpost. What did this mean? One week left and he didn't have anywhere to go. No friends to stay with, no shoulder to cry on. He was absolutely alone. _Alone. _ As his legs grew week, he moved to sit on the floor, fighting the hot stinging in his eyes. Term started the next week, so his trunk was already packed. He put on his traveling cloak, grabbed the box that contained his only belongings, and started down the stairs. He heard nothing as he exited the house, but the sound of a click as the door locked behind him.

Wherever he was going, he had to go now. He ignored the pain, the abandonment, shoving it back into the far caverns of his mind like he did with most things he'd rather forget. Turning, he apparated, and found himself on an unfamiliar doorstep. Swallowing hard as to conceal his emotions, he stepped forward and knocked. A voice sounded from down the hall, but muddled by the wall, he couldn't make out the voice. The doorknob turned, and behind it, thankfully, was a familiar face. Brian, one of his school friends. Marc let out a sigh of relief.

"Cascade?" He said confused, taking in the cloak and the trunk. "What are you doing here?"

Marc scratched his head, trying to come up with a good excuse. His mind weak, he drew a blank, going for a nondescript answer. "Well, you know. I was in the neighborhood. Though I'd… stop by… if that's okay?" _And maybe stay with you for the next week if that's cool. _

"Yeah, sure, come in." He smiled, stepping back to let Marc through the door. Brain wasn't the smartest tool on the Hannukah bush, so Marc figured he didn't find anything strange in his friends random appearance. He'd been here before, recognizing the rich wood paneling on the walls, the staircase that wrapped in an upward slant of a circle around the entire first floor before actually going anywhere. He looked around the place, connecting memories. Neither of his parents seemed to be anywhere on the first floor, and he couldn't draw any parallel to them in his mind. Maybe he'd never met them. "Hey, I was just going to play some Quidditch. Do you have a broom?" Brian's voice broke him from his reverie. He blinked for a moment, running through what he'd packed before shaking his head. He'd forgotten his broom.

"Er, no, I don't."

"That's fine, you can borrow my brother's."

The two of them went out to the back of the house where he'd enchanted makeshift hoops to hang there in the air. Marcus kicked off from the ground on the Cleansweep 5 he'd adopted from Brian's brother and got the feel of the broom, zipping around the "pitch". He did a few tricks he'd picked up from his house team days to the amusement of a smirking Brian, still grounded. "Showoff." He heard him mutter as he flew within earshot. Marc flew down at a dangerous speed and halted right before Brain, feeling the first smile make it's way on his face. Quidditch was freeing, whether or not the freedom was tangible. He knew there were things he would have to deal with, things to be upset about. But for too many years he'd practiced ignoring his emotions. Why change now, when a perfectly enjoyable game of Quidditch is presenting itself?

"Alright then, let's see what you can do." He smirked, flying backwards up in to the air to give Brian room to mount. Once he got up into the air with the old, beat up quaffle, the two of them were off. He wasn't sure he could really call the two person Quidditch they were playing a sport. Really, it was more of a midair battle, each trying to knock each other off their broom in an attempt to get the quaffle and toss it through the hoop.

Marc let out a laugh as he stole the quaffle away from Brain and flew to the other end where the hoop was, eighty feet off the ground. As Marc's hands left his broom to pick the quaffle up from under his arms, Brain rammed into him from the side. Marc didn't realize he'd been knocked off his broom until he was falling. He heard Brian call his name distantly, but before he could respond he felt all of the air knocked out of him as he hit the roof of the wooden shed beneath him. He felt numb and he felt sick as he groaned, not remembering how to move so he could get up. Mind hurtling in and out of consciousness, the thing he couldn't quite place was why his back was arched off the ground. As his moments of numb bliss broke, the pain hit him and his mind went completely blank for a moment with the force of it. He cried out in pain as he rolled over onto his stomach, taking the weight off the sharp wooden pieces stuck in his back. He heard the sounds of breaking bones as he moved, but hadn't retained enough mental clarity to tell which ones they were. His blood stained the grass red around him as the pool creeped further and further away from him. Blindly, he heard the voices yelling, trying to break through the door into the shed.

But then the pain of his back or his bones didn't seem to matter, because there was a new pain that masked them all. A bright white light flooded the room beyond his eyelids as a terrible, indescribable pain that attacked him from the inside and the outside, ripping him of his remaining sanity and tolerance. His mind felt like it was compressing and swelling against his skull at the same time, causing him to writhe against the bloodstained grass. He heard the scream before he realized it belonged to him. Mind no longer able to resort to his defense mechanisms, his thought were suddenly filled with all the emotions he'd been repressing his entire life. _This is it._ He thought through his muddled mind, teeth gritted in physical agony, heightened by the regret that flooded through him now. _My whole life the only thing I've wanted is to die happy. But here I am, dying miserable. _He faintly heard the walls of the shed crumble as the spell disintegrated the walls. He wanted to call out, to tell them they couldn't do anything about him. That even if they found a way to keep him alive, he wasn't worth their efforts. In the moment before the darkness flooded his mind, he gave up. _Hopeless_. His father's word echoed through his mind a final time before the black engulfed him and he faded away.


End file.
